Texts linked to Gilley

STOCKTON - A text message sent from murder victim Dalene Carlson's phone the day she disappeared said she was walking on Country Club Boulevard in the morning.

Jennie Rodriguez-Moore

STOCKTON - A text message sent from murder victim Dalene Carlson's phone the day she disappeared said she was walking on Country Club Boulevard in the morning.

The message was in response to a friend's inquiry of her whereabouts.

But that message was sent from somewhere else, according to data compiled and analyzed by wireless expert Jim Cook.

The signal from Carlson's cellphone during that message was picked up by a tower covering an area that included the home of Jason Gilley, in the 4400 block of Amador Place. It was nowhere near Country Club Boulevard.

More than one week into Gilley's trial for the kidnapping, rape and murder of the 23-year-old woman, the prosecution presented cellphone records that trace the duo's movements.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau suggested through phone evidence that Carlson's morning messages were sent from Gilley's home by someone other than Carlson.

Carlson, who had just moved to Stockton from a small town in Idaho, was last seen by her friends leaving a bar with Gilley after midnight Aug. 7, 2011, and the two were later seen together on store surveillance footage buying alcoholic beverages.

Following a wide search for a missing Carlson that extended to the Calaveras River, her badly decomposed body was found two months later by a farmer in an Escalon cornfield at Lone Tree and Sexton roads.

On the day she vanished, Carlson was having text conversations with various individuals through the night, including her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend Jacob Evangelisti and friend James Cosens, a cousin of Gilley's in whom messages suggest Carlson had an interest. All were friends.

Amid a series of messages with Cosens, Carlson indicated she was "crashing" on Gilley's couch.

Cook created a road map of Gilley's and Carlson's travels from the day she disappeared by linking calls, messages and other cellphone activity to the towers that picked up the signals.

Tower data show them both moving from areas that encompass the bar, the store, Gilley's home and later - after 5 a.m. - in southern parts of the county.

Records of Carlson's phone indicate a call was made to her at 9:57 a.m. from Cosens that went directly to voice-mail. That call pinged to the antenna at Jack Tone Road and Clinton Avenue in Manteca.

Law enforcement officials couldn't pinpoint the location of where her text messages were made, because Carlson's service provider had already purged that tower data to make room for new activity. Except for one text message.

Records of her text messages show an exchange resumed between her phone and Cosens' phone after 10 a.m. Cosens asked what she was doing.

A message from her phone said: "Walking home." He asked where from.

At 11:25 a.m., a message responded: "Country Club." By chance, Cooks said, this was the only text message for which tower information was saved.

But there is no tower data that corroborates either Carlson or Gilley were in Modesto, where Gilley claims to have dropped off Carlson.

Earlier in the trial, Cosens testified that he and Carlson had a sexual encounter before Aug. 7. He also answered questions revolving around their text messages.

Cosens' brother, Robert Cosens, also has testified. In interviews, Robert Cosens stated to Stockton police Detective Bradley Burrell that he had overheard a friend ask Gilley: "So you dumped those bullets and that ammo in the canal?"

And that Gilley responded: "Yeah."

Under cross-examination, Deputy Public Defender Michael Bullard suggested through questioning Robert Cosens made his statement to get back at Gilley. Robert Cosens' fiancée had broken up with him to be with Gilley the following September.

Bullard indicated Robert Cosens didn't provide that statement until after his fiancée had left him.

The friend Robert Cosens' referred to has corroborated his account.

Bullard is expected to cross-examine Cooks on the cellphone tower testimony next week.